probable, however, that during the weak irregular government of Stephen the spiritual power had made some encroachments, if not in regard to investitures, in another direction. It was a still more important question upon which Henry now found himself opposed by Becket. This king was as little likely as anyone of his predecessors to tolerate such of the pretensions of the clergy as would have either allied them as a body with a foreign power, or withdrawn them as individuals from subjection to the ordinary laws of the realm. It can hardly be doubted that so long as Becket held the office of chancellor (which he threw up as soon as he obtained the primacy) he had gone vigorously along with his royal master in discountenancing, and, where necessary, resisting, all such pretensions. Now, however, when Henry insisted that clerks, or ecclesiastical persons, when charged criminally, should be tried in the king's courts, and punished, if found guilty, in the same way with other subjects, the archbishop declared this to be a violation of the rights of the church, and set himself to oppose what he denounced as a sacrilegious innovation with all the powers of his office. Whether the system which Henry wished to enforce was in conformity with the ancient customs of the kingdom, as he maintained that it was, may indeed be disputed. It was manifestly, at any rate, the only system compatible with the good government of the kingdom. The highest punishments that the ecclesiastical courts could inflict were flagellation, fine, imprisonment, and degradation; and the crime of murder itself, when committed by a clergyman, was usually expiated by a whipping when the case was left in their hands. On the other hand the archbishop probably also conceived himself to be bound in duty to make the stand he did for the claims set up by the church. There is no difficulty in understanding how the two parties should see the question differently from their opposite points of view; and they both gave by the whole course of their conduct all possible evidence of their sincerity. After other proceedings, Henry assembled a great council at Clarendon, in Wiltshire, at Christmas, 1163, and there demanded the assent of Becket and the other prelates to sixteen constitutions or articles, embodying what he maintained to be the ancient law or custom of the realm upon the matters in dispute. Becket, who had before refused to promise obedience to a much less comprehensive enactment, was now prevailed upon by the entreaties of his brethren to sign these constitutions; but he would not affix his seal to them. Even his signature, which had been wrung from him by importunity, was no sooner given than it was bitterly repented of, and he made no scruple openly to accuse himself of the most criminal weakness in doing what he had done. The contest was now renewed with greater animosity on both sides than ever, and before the end of the year Becket had clandestinely withdrawn himself from England, and taken refuge in France, under the protection of King Louis. He remained abroad, firmly refusing to make any concession; but at last, in July, 1170, he and Henry held a conference in a meadow near Freitville, or Freteval, on the borders of Touraine, when the form of a reconciliation was gone through, and the archbishop soon after set out on his return to England. He reached Canterbury on the 3rd of December, and with the exception of making a visit to London, remained there in quiet for the next three weeks. Meanwhile, however, accounts had been brought to Henry in Normandy, that before he had embarked at Wissant, he had sent forward letters of excommunication or suspension against the archbishop of York, the bishop of London, and others of the prelates who had stood by the king in the late controversy. Several of these prelates instantly came themselves over to Rouen, and informed the king of this extraordinary proceeding. Furious with indignation Henry hastily exclaimed, "Of the dastards who eat my bread is there no one who will deliver me from this ungrateful, turbulent, incorrigible priest?" Four knights who heard the words, soon after suddenly and secretly started for England. On that same day, Saturday the 25th, the archbishop was present in his cathedral, at the performance of the solemnities of Christmas, and preached to a crowded auditory from the words "I am come unto you to die in the midst of you." After his sermon he excommunicated some individuals who, he said, had for the last seven years been busy in wronging and insulting himself and the church. On the Tuesday following, being the 28th, the four knights arrived from Normandy. On the afternoon of the next day, accompanied by twelve others, they made their way into the archbishop's house; he was prevailed upon by his friends to proceed to the Church; thither, however, the conspirators followed him; they demanded that he should absolve the excommunicated bishops, but, unbending to the last, he bid defiance to their menaces; upon which he was struck down by repeated blows at the foot of the altar. Henry was still keeping his Christmas festival at Bure, in Normandy, when tidings of the event were brought to him. There can be no reasonable doubt that he was profoundly affected with horror at the crime that had been committed almost in his name, as well as alarmed for the consequences. He shut himself up in his closet for three days, admitting no one and refusing all nourishment. It was not till after a negociation of two years that he obtained from the Court of Rome, a full absolution, on his appearing in the cathedral of Avranches, and there publicly taking his solemn oath on the Gospels, that he was innocent of the murder of the archbishop both in word and deed. Meanwhile, he had acquired new power and glory by the conquest of Ireland; circumstances were also changed in other respects; new objects had in part withdrawn him from the controversy with the church which had occupied him almost to the exclusion of everything else, for the preceding six or seven years; and now that Becket was removed the pretensions of the clergy, although they may have remained the same in words, had actually become something very different and much less formidable. Henry therefore now also engaged, that if any customs hostile to the liberties of the ecclesiastical order had been introduced into his kingdom since his accession, they should be abolished. And four years after, in a great council held at Northampton, the constitutions of Clarendon were so far repealed as that, among other concessions of less moment, clergymen were exempted from being personally arraigned before a secular judge for any crime, unless it were against the forest laws, or regarded a lay fee for which they owed service to a lay lord. But, although we learn this from a letter written by the king to the pope, Alexander III., which is preserved by the contemporary Latin annalist Ralph de Diceto (himself a churchman), it may be doubted if the satisfaction thus given to the clergy proved, after all, much more than a form of words.

Before this, however, Henry had become involved in new troubles, and had encountered the first gust of the storm that was to wrap the afternoon of his reign and his life in darkness and ruin. In the year 1170, in the midst of his contest with Becket, he had had his eldest son Henry consecrated and crowned as conjoint king with himself. The ceremony was performed in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of York; and a theory that has satisfied some modern historians is, that Henry's object in this proceeding was simply to spite Becket and to diminish the authority he derived from his station, by showing that a King of England could be crowned without the assistance of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is certain, indeed, that Becket resented what had been done as an invasion of the privileges of his see, and this was